Shenko Drabbling
by lonelyiridescence
Summary: A collection of fluff, angst, hurt/comfort drabbles for the romance between Kaidan Alenko and F!Shep.
1. Unnamed Shenko Drabble 1

Everything was humming. Everything was persistently trickling into her ears and resonating in the recesses of her mind. Shepard folded herself into a clenched ball of bed sheets and feverish skin, trying to keep all of her parts from fracturing and sliding onto the floor. Her hands were clamped around her ears so rigidly, trying fruitlessly to block out the incessant noise, that they were trembling with the skin taut and white around the knuckles. Shallow gasps untangled themselves from her knotted chest like all the countless dead fish in her aquarium.

The humming was filled with voices. The soft droning of the Normandy beneath her, the whispering of artificial air blanketing the monochrome floor, but most of all… there was sharp screaming that swarmed angrily through her head. All the innocent people that had fallen. All the people that would fall, some by her own hand. Shepard was responsible for everyone, for a whole galaxy filled with fragile lives.

She bolted upright, gasping heightened, as her wild tousled midnight locks cascaded down her shoulders and stormy blue eyes flickered with panic. She felt cornered, a desperate wild animal in crazed search for escape.

She moved automatically, pushing herself from the bed and launching towards the exit. Pressing on unseeingly in a blood tinted haze, Shepard eventually found herself grasping both sides of an open door frame on dangerously unsteady legs.

There was a slight pause in all of the internal chaos, and her eyes snapped over to discover the soulful chocolate gaze of Kaidan, concern settling in it, locked onto her. He was sitting in bed, illuminated by the yellowish glare of a nightstand lamp, an open book in his lap. And a sickeningly honeyed thickness crept into the room as she stared at him, the slumbering Normandy paying them no heed.  
Her legs ignored the stagnant atmosphere, or perhaps reacted to it, and collapsed beneath her. She fell to her knees with a reluctant sob tearing throughout, face burrowing in her hands. There was no reason for her to have gone to him. He was no longer hers, no longer wanted her.

So it was a surprise when she felt two gently hands on her shoulders. They brought her to her feet and guided her to sit on the edge of the bed.  
Shepard looked up at him, surprised, and he joined her resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in the center.

"I'm… sorry," she said mundanely, "I shouldn't be here."

He smiled sadly, "But here you are."

She turned away, ashamed.

"Shepard this… it isn't like you." she flinched back when he reached over and tucked a few tangled locks that hid her face behind her ear, "But you have to realize you're human."

She was taken aback slightly by his immediate comprehension of her state, "I'm not-"

"You are. Just like I am." he leaned closer to her, "Flawed, selfish, but something roughly beautiful… Humans I mean… Ma'am."

Despite herself, she barked a choked laugh.

"Sometimes you need a shoulder," he added, "Or so an extremely admirable woman once told me."

She found herself cornered again. Guilty beneath the limelight. She felt desperation claw back up her throat. Here, sitting right beside her, was another casualty of her actions that continually came to haunt her like no one dead ever could.

He recognized her despair immediately. What he did next she would never have anticipated.

Kaidan wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up as he would a small child. She was flooded with the spicy, crisp smell of his shampoo, lulling her violent panic to silent shaking. He stretched out on his side on the bed and pulled her tightly to his chest, encircling her with his soothing presence. Numbing the world.

"You're only human Shepard," he repeated in a whisper kissing the top of her head reassuringly, "That and you're a hell of a woman."

"How did you realize?" she said into his worn T-shirt, "How could you understand without me saying…"

"Shh." he stroked her hair comfortingly and tightened his embrace, "Try to get some sleep and do more thinking tomorrow."

She knew come morning they would return to awkward glances and strained silence. But somewhere, someone's gods had granted her this time with the wall between them virtually she finally relaxed into the familiar lullaby of his rhythmic breathing.

"Kaid-"

"Horizon."

"What?"

"Horizon. I was wrong… I'm sorry."

"It doesn't change where we stand now… It doesn't… fix anything."

"I know… I just thought it would help."

She didn't realize it, but it did help. Just a little.

"Thank you."

"Sleep well Shepard."


	2. Unnamed Shenko Drabble 2

She hadn't changed much. But it wasn't in appearance necessarily. He had turned away from Anderson to discover the silken sweep of her neckline, like a snow bank into a midnight swath of hair.

"Shepard…"

Surprise fluttered across her face as she turned and exhaled, "Kaidan?"

Her features were striking as ever, angular with high arching cheekbones and a defined jawline dusted with a sprinkling of freckles. There was a slight prominence of her upper lip over her lower, as if it was a bud just beginning to open. But the most stunning were her eyes. They crackled with the electricity of a stormy blue horizon, iridescent with sparkling wit. They were turbulent and unyielding, but reflected something soft in their depths. She was lean and muscular, honed to deadly perfection by nearly a lifetime in the Alliance. But though she had devoted herself to a career of service, but her eyes were her own, always dancing with her thoughts.

She really hadn't changed, still assertive and strong and beautiful as she'd always been in both appearance and personality… and the significance she held in his life hadn't changed as well.

Their eye contact was suspiciously guarded and he had the strangest urge to draw his pistol, the biotic amp prickling down his arm. Her L5 hissed almost visibly as well and he internally flinched when he imagined being the recipient of a full biotic charge. There wasn't open hostility, but the air hung in thick woolen sheets that muffled their breaths and caused the static rippling beginnings of their mass effect fields to resonate more deeply within one another. He suppressed a shudder at the building force behind her field, like stabbings rather than prickling. He truthfully hadn't expected anything less from her and ignored the inappropriate urge to chuckle.

"Shepard" Anderson called from behind him, "They're waiting for us."

Her eyes snapped away from him and the mass effect field recoiled as she nodded at their old friend and started forward. The distance became increasingly small between them and he rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.

He felt himself smile encouragingly despite himself. No teeth, just a small tug at his lips to dismiss their silent confrontation, "Good luck in there."

She brushed past him extending a small smirk in return and he caught her eyes flickering indignantly stirring ripples in the already stormy blue.

As she strode into the committee chamber he felt drained, head throbbing slightly as he watched her assume the role of the one walking away from him this time.

The new lieutenant that had been trailing her (Vega was it?) spoke suddenly, "You know the commander?"

There was a hint of briar-like jealously in the question.

Know her? He thought of late nights laughing with Ash and her about ridiculous encounters with equally ridiculous people during their mission. He thought about the countless competitive bets they'd made –racing cups around the room with biotics, who would lose their lunch the next time Shepard drove the Mako, who could outdrink Wrex - most of them which he'd lost. He remembered the soft tangle of her hair through his fingers and her head against his chest when she'd fallen asleep, silently mourning, in his arms after Virmire. He remembered their soft blue auras meeting as he ran his hand across the smooth porcelain of her stomach and her lips nibbling his shoulder.

He thought about the way her eyes snuffed out after his harsh words on Horizon, something inside them broken, her fists clenched and biotics flaring dangerously around them.

Did he know her?

"I used to." Kaidan replied.


	3. Unnamed Shenko Drabble 3

He dropped his head to her breastplate, scarlet mixing with the dirt smeared skin of his forehead. Defeated. Stained. He was hunched over her form, a hardly solid thing without the woman he knew and loved occupying it, in a silent vigil. Kaidan Alenko was praying. To Ash? To the God that she so faithfully believed in… might have found? Somewhere within him he recognized that he had fulfilled his promise, that he had fought for everything…lost everything to hold her again in his arms. The smoke, the rubble, the screams and destruction were all irrelevant to him. Just his breathing. And her silence.

He chose now to be selfish. He and he alone would be by her side at the end. No one could take that from him. Selfishness seemed inconsequential now. Now, when once the fate of millions rested on her worn shoulders, now that there was no longer a galaxy left to save. He encircled her, hunched over in a decrepit knot committing himself as the only one that could possibly hold claim to this shattered symbol, this glorified illusion of peace and strength. She had always been just Shepard to him.

She had been the same woman to him all those years ago in a dimly lit medbay when she'd said "You couldn't have known what would happen. No one could." And in the conviction and encouragement of her voice, though he had suppressed it at the time, his interest had been piqued and steadily nurtured into something more.

There was tangled choking in his chest and he felt his red stained breath moisten with silver lines skirting down the bridge of his nose. Blood of a different sort.

"Shepard," he said in an entirely separate voice, one that was calm and warm. His brown eyes burning something only meant for her.

He bent over her face trying to listen for the faintest breath, cupping her face in his hands. His moth wing touch left bloody streaks across her temples and cheeks, and over the budding part of her lips.

"Shepard. Shepard come back." He whispered forcefully as if his order would have made it so. And he sat there for a moment that stretched longer than an entire lifetime where nothing… nothing… nothing occurred. No miracle fluttering of khol eyelashes or stirring. He lowered his head further, barely aware of his own actions, and pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth.

It was not a kiss. Not exactly. It was a thing born of desperation, crushing sadness, and pain. That his home stole the only woman he had ever truly loved. It was a lament and a goodbye.

Kaidan stood meticulously slowly, feeling cinder filled air replace the interim left between his arms. He let the tears run unchecked as he unwillingly turned his back to a broken legend, and began to drag himself back to the crew, finish off what was left of the Reapers. It was wrong to recover her body, because it wasn't her. She would just be used, even unconsciously as a figurehead and a relic to be put on a pedestal. The idea disgusted him, caused bile to creep up his throat bitterly.

He would leave her entombed beneath the rubble of the home she sought to reclaim, and allow it to claim her instead. And it would take everything that remained of him and bury it with her as well. He was no longer Kaidan Alenko. Just Major now.

As the Major disappeared into the curtain of destruction, an N7 armor marker fluttered with a pained movement, and scattered light forward as it continued to rhythmically rise and fall. This small movement changed everything in that instant. And determined the end…of nothing but the war.


	4. Unnamed Shenko Drabble 4

Broken and bruised. Blooming purple irises and a network of carnation petal burns scattered across the bridge of the nose and cheeks. She searched, everything quieted within her as if the breath that she drew would cause the peace on his features to shatter, for something familiar from beneath the charred and blackened skin. She managed to see, or trick herself into seeing, the small scar on the chin she'd made fun of all those years ago. It hadn't ever occured to her in the moment that she loved that small imperfection. Only that she needed to see it, intact, even beneath the damage and devastation.

"Hey Kaidan."

She was incapable of anything more articulate. Her body remained cold and numb, all except for a niggling tingle in her chest. She felt like an intruder, an unwelcome pathogen in the anesthetic swaddled hospital room.

Yet she also felt no surprise at the use of his name. It rolled from her lips easily, comfortingly. She began to babble, unaware of exactly what she was rambling about, just that it was necessary to say it. Somewhere inside she recognized how simple it was to relay everything that she needed to, even if he was just barely a shell of a person lying before her.

Impact. She felt the full gravity of the situation pull her towards the ground, promises of protection and love tinckling nostalgically across the linoleum floor like little glass shards. She became queasy and unsettled at the absence of his soft brown eyes… Flickering.

"I… Could use you."  
It slipped out unintentionally. But there was no resentful response or dismissal of her raw-around-the-edges proclaimation. Because he was simply absent, not quite in the room. But she would not accept that she was speaking to a corpse. She would see plenty of those. He wouldn't… Couldn't die. Not when she subconciously understood how much she needed him.

"Come on Kaidan. Fight."

She turned a reluctant back to the tragedy she had caused, understanding that the pain and desire for his presence would slam full force once she left the room. And she didnt realize that she loved knowing that she could return, only knew that she absolutely needed to.

She didnt know she still loved him.  
Did she?

"Us" was a hard word to say when the war could so easily turn that into "I".

But she already knew her answer as she walked over and pressed her lips to his temple.

"That's an order."


	5. Unnamed Shenko Drabble 5

There was always the preeminent fact that ge was fearful. Fearful of walking into her off duty, fear of not knowing what to say, fearful most of all of watching her walk away. It was clear, pealing, and exhilerating fear that reminded him constantly,

She was an unknown.

The bottle and glasses pressed tangible weight in his palms, displacing an airy detatched feeling as he stared indecisively at the luminescent green door release. He didn't know how long he'd stood there, sometimes pacing, the old habitual resistance keeping him patroling her door. Control was ingrained deeply in his persona, and everything on the other side was beyond his own.

It had been a leap of faith to fall for Shepard. It had been an agonizing decision and a difficult feeling to accept and acclimate to. Because he knew the guidelines, Alliance and his own, and that he would have to share her with everyone. His love for her would be rivaled by the love of millions. Diminishing himself to this level of insignificance pushed doubt into his mind, yet only strengthened the pull towards her. Because he also understood she needed something solid to gravitate towards, rather than float through a sea of faceless admiration.

He loved Shepard, undoubtedly and unconditionally. He loved the soft curve of her neckline and the way her voice was like silken wine. Her ferocity and resolve and hidden compassion and her dry wit. Her selflessness and empathy and her bursting laugher. And her stormy turbulent blue eyes. They were in constant rolling waves, and crashing seafoam on hard black rock.

So he disregarded his fear, and started forwards towards the door, fully intending to let her know that he not only loved her once, not only loved her still, but always would.

Until the end of time.


	6. Claim

The scream that she heard was not human. It was detached and choked, marred with blood and clanging metal. The hissing of bullets echoed in its reverberating confines, hoarse and snapping with elastic force. Shepard flinched as the sound tore mercilessly through her eardrums causing her to clap a hand to the side of her head. The sound broke with the breadth of the dips in a half-formed word,

"KAIDAN."

She felt the sharp pain in her chest that drew the breath outwards flatten her rib cage and steal behind her eyes, causing searing pressure to build behind them. Her jaw strained against the force, dried lips splitting lightly at the seams and flooding her mouth with nauseating metallic flavor. She hadn't realized that she was the one raking the air with the painful, hissing outburst. She only saw the little folds around his eyes, the ones that emerged with his serene smile, tighten into sharp lines with every bang against the downed shuttle door.

Her heart folded into itself and disappeared.

There was no hesitation as she cracked her pistol outwards in a whip of blinding hatred, snapping to find the dead center of the metallic woman's chest. She was not thinking, not rationalizing as she always was inclined to do. One of the most deadly things about her was her ability to anticipate through level-headed clarity the move of her opponent and counteract it before it could be executed. There was no thought here. Just the rapid click of a trigger and the clangs of the bullets finding their mark with ease. The robot never stood a chance.

She felt defiance work itself into her mind amidst the bloodlust, as she emptied the rest of her clip into the motionless silver body for good measure. Then the desperation set in.

Shepard pushed herself to Kaidan's side, his motionless body causing her already brittle mental stability to shatter. She swiftly in lifted him onto her shoulders in a fireman's carry though she was vaguely aware that she would need her already strained biotics to handle his weight. She felt Liara hum with a blue aura to her right, assisting her in her crazed attempt.

_Goddamnit Kaidan stay alive. Don't you dare leave me now. For the love of god stay with me. I will not allow them to take… to take what's mine._

__Time was her enemy, a rush against it to save him would be her only mission now. Reapers or not. She was powerless at Mindoir. Powerless just hours before when Earth fell.

_No one will take what is mine. No one can take what I love from me anymore_


	7. Stars

Shepard lounged lazily across the bed, encircled in his arms and head resting on his chest, as Kaidan held a book over his stomach tilted at just the right angle for the two of them to read together in comfortable silence. The quiet serenity was only broken by the soft rustle of a turning page, his even breath slightly tousling the strands of hair on the top of her head. He ran his fingers through her hair continuously, combing the silken strands into thick ropes, then scattering them again with a light flick of his wrist as he dropped a gentle kiss to the hollow of her throat. They were reading Sherlock Holmes, a gift from Kasumi before her departing to work on the Crucible.

She propped herself up, hands flat on the warm pool of cotton t-shirt stretched over his chest. Pressing their forheads together she smiled warmly at him, the tips of their noses grazing.

"Mmmh. Stop it Shepard this is a good part and you're being distracting." he smiled in return, catching the corner of her mouth with his. She deepened the contact, drawing it out into a slow, lazy kiss.

"We've read this several times now. I know what happens… I think it's time for a short break…" she lost her train of thought as he trailed kisses down the soft swoop of her neckline.

"Quit it Kaidan." She laughed affectionately, "Who's being the distraction now?"

"You're cute when you're at a loss for words." he smirked, "The great Commander Shepard finally has a weakness."

She gave him a playful glare and rolled onto her back beside him, elbows splayed outward and head resting on top of her hands, "You know what I miss?"

"Hmm?"

"Stars."

He pushed himself onto his side, resting on his elbow and facing her with a puzzled expression and a small pucker between his eyebrows, "What? Wait a minute that's sort of… why? We just happen… oh I don't know… to see them all. the. time."

She exhaled, amused, "I meant before mass relay space travel and before we explored 'the final frontier'." She held up her arms and leaned over so that they were both looking through a small rectangle she'd formed with her hands, "You know, when space was only everything in this little box to me lying in the tall grass at night looking up."

He did the same with his hands and placed them beside hers, trying to envision a young Shepard looking at the stars, "Did you ever make a wish?"

She thought for a moment, "Well, being a colony kid it didn't seem like putting all my hopes and dreams into something that was already understood would make them possible. Just like, ever seeing Earth was something not probable. You know… before I even knew leaving Mindoir was a possibility."

She readjusted, curling into a ball and burying her face in his chest.

She'd never spoken about her past before, and it was both surprising and heartening to hear.

"What did you wish for?"

"You're going to laugh."

"No I won't."

"I wanted to meet a nice alien and talk about space and biotics." He cringed at the patheticness of the thought now, "I was six okay?"

He felt her supress a snicker, "Well, you're more than living the dream huh?"

"Heh yeah." they lapsed into a warm lull in the conversation, his face pressed into her hair and arm draped over her waist as they just remained still. Breathing one another in.

"Make a wish now."

"What?"

"Go on, look at all the stars you have to choose from."

She was quiet for a little bit, "I want to come home to an Earth with no war… With you."

He felt his ears get red.

"Gotcha Alenko. I know you're blushing."

"Well looks like we found out my weakness."

"Overly emotional proclamations?"

"No. You."

She laughed with strain tinging the sound, "You think that's possible?"

"Going home together after its all over?"

"Mm."

"Yeah, Shepard we'll be okay. I promise you this time. We'll be on Earth and we'll look up at those stars after all this and make a new wish."


	8. Angst

"Don't you dare turn around Shepard. Don't you dare make that charge."

She trailed her fingers across his cheek, lingering at the corner of his mouth. She even smiled.

"This isn't about what I want."

"NO."

She turned around and leapt off the ledge sprinting towards the column of white light, the blinding end. A funeral pyre.

He watched her lose her footing, thrown back by Harbinger's laser. It missed by inches. He imagined he could smell her singed hair. Maybe a trickle of blood across her temple.

He turned his back to the scene, pulling out his assault rifle and glowing a brilliant blue. A final screaming fanfare of a readying laser. An exploding flash of scarlet in the periphery of his vision behind him. Not a single human shout of anguish or surprise.

He dropped to his knees.

"Goodbye Shepard."


	9. All Too Real Hell

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN 'SHE'S GONE.'" he roared into the opening of the escape pod.

Joker, splayed haphazardly on the floor with his face pinched in pain, just stared blankly back at him.

He flickered dangerously, irises burning into a deep blue as his field built up around him. He grabbed Joker by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. He ignored the sickening crunch of breaking bones.

"What. do. you. mean. 'she's. gone.'" he repeated in a soft, malicious hiss.

Joker moaned in pain and his head lolled onto his shoulder, clutching at the hand that held him pinned.

Garrus sprinted up behind the two of them, Tali and Liara watching a distance away, coiled for any sign of a dangerous move. He felt like inappropriately laughing, hysterically laughing. What did it matter that they thought he was acting like a menace, she was gone, there wouldn't be consequences. No. No She wasn't gone. She _couldn't _be.

"Kaidan, put. him. down." Garrus clicked his mandibles uncomfortably, "Do you think killing him is going to make this right?"

"Well I don't know Garrus," he said flaring up a little more, "Maybe if he'd just _listened _and got off the damn ship. I don't know. Maybe SHE WOULD BE HERE." He moved to slam Joker against the wall again but felt Garrus' restraining hand on his arm.

He moved to blast Garrus back, but Joker spoke through clenched teeth, "No Garrus its okay let him do it."

He snapped his head over to glare at the pilot, "Now you say something."

"Do what ever you want Kaidan, "he said with depthless sadness in his eyes, "No one is going to hate me more than I hate myself right now."

He felt the anger drain from him and his biotics buzz and fade, trying to force back his own guilt. Being angry was easier. He should have stayed, could have helped her, would have saved her. He released Joker, watching him slide to the floor with a groan of pain as Liara and Tali moved in with medigel.

Garrus tried to put a supportive hand on his shoulder but he nudged it off and began running.

He didn't know where, or why, but as the escape pods grew more and more distant, he could see Shepard's face, memorized to the most insignificant freckle, grow in clarity as she faded from existence into sharp longing and pain.


	10. OCD: Post ME3 Normandy Crash

He walked into the captain's cabin. It was dim, the few holes in the ceiling filtering thick white bars of light in. Glass was scattered all over the floor, sparkling from pools of water and in between the still bodies of fish and toppled model ships. The broken room nauseated him, a throbbing in his head indicated a mother of a migrane coming on. He crossed over, splashing between every step, to face the cavity where the fishtank once was and stood silently. Envisioning the room when it was once whole. And alive.

Something compelled him to begin straigtening out the datapads on on her desk, placing them in neat piles the way she always kept them. He used his biotics to lift all the glass and water and dump them in the bathroom. After placing the music player back on the nightstand and switching off the broken but still flickering terminal, he searched for the model ships and placed them back into their corresponding spots on the display rack.

Time didn't feel relevant as he cleaned up the wreckage, watching as the room regained some semblance of normality and casting the illusion that nothing had ever occured.

The only model left missing was the Normandy SR1, its absence leaving the job woefully incomplete. He searched until he found a misshapen black lump in the corner beneath the couch. As he pulled it out, he realized he was holding her n7 hoodie, beneath which the SR1 sat, grounded. Its replacement did not change the atmosphere of loss and the stagnant coldness that hung in the air. Her slightly damp hoodie still smelled like her.

Later that evening Garrus found Kaidan lying in the bed rigidly asleep with his face buried in her jacket. Marveling at how Shepard's cabin seemed to have survived the crash relatively untouched, he didn't have the heart to wake him, hoping sleep had given him some short lived peace


	11. Jealousy

Shepard walked into Huerta Memorial with a quickened step, brushing off the feeling of anticipation and a nagging nervousness fluttering in her chest. She stopped at the shop kiosk, picking up a bottle of wine as a "get well" sentiment. She was never good at this sentimental sympathy crap… she just wanted to see him, awake if nothing else.

Fidgeting restlessly as the decontamination slowed her, she stopped suddenly with one hand on the door. She didn't know what she wanted to do, part of her told her to get the hell out, part of her wanted to run in there as fast as she could, and all of her knew she was going to look like an idiot.

_Get a hold of yourself and stop acting like a teenage girl._

She steeled herself with a long exhale and pushed the green door release, greeted by the moans of the sick and the efficient swishing and chatter of doctors at work. Nearing Kaidan's room she peered through the glass and found him with… Dr. Michel.

The had her hand on his chest and was giggling about something.

_A simple physical? My ass._

She slammed the palm of her hand on the door and burst into the room in a fury of unreasonable anger.

"Um… Commander…" Dr. Michel said surprised, flinching backward, "I… Nice to see you."

Kaidan had a devious smirk on his face. She wanted to smack it off.

"Hello Dr. Michel. I heard a salarian doctor saying he needed help with something. He was about to page you. Quarian with a cough. Very Serious." she said with narrowed eyes.

"I thought-"

"She's also dying."

"Um," Michel looked uncertain but made to leave the room nonetheless, "Thanks for the message. I'll see what I can do."

_Good Riddance._

"Nice one. She looked like she feared for her life." he said, smirk widening.

"Was that standard protocol Major? I don't recall doctors dripping all over you part of your treatment plan." she said with a raised eyebrow.

"No, but its a nice bonus."

She glared with a fierce glint in her eyes.

"Alright alright, just calm down before your head explodes." he laughed, "What did you want me to do? I'm tied down to this bed you know."

She glowered back, "I don't know! Run away?"

"Real mature Shepard." he said still smiling widely, "You know… if I didn't know better I'd say you were jealous."

She stiffened, "What? Jealous? Please Alenko keep dreaming."

He chuckled, "Right. Of course, excuse me for ever assuming."

"You don't believe me."

"Nope."

She sighed and sat down beside his bed, "Well… let's say I was jealous. I would tell you that it's your choice."

He looked out the window for a moment, then placed his hand on hers, rubbing the back of it soothingly, "Then if you were… I would say that there was no competition then, and there isn't any now."


	12. Singing in the Shower

He walked into the cabin with a tired yawn, the room illuminated in a honeycomb of rippling water reflections. The shower was running in the bathroom and he slouched against the door with a contented sigh, listening to the small splashes of her footfalls and inhaling the smell of vanilla-body-wash scented steam.

He thought he had imagined it at first, but the low melodic notes dripped languidly into the main room, a lilting alto that reverberated in the pit of his stomach. Smooth amber ale and summer grass. She was… singing? The voice was slightly breathy, a little pitchy, but something vibrant and seductive. Something lovely.

He pushed open the door, the hiss of steam and the hot water seeping through his clothes comforting as he wrapped his arms around her waist, slick with water. She gasped and elbowed him playfully in the ribs.

"Get_ out_ Kaidan."

"Not until you tell me why you never let me know you sing in the shower." he smirked.

"**What**"

She flipped around and pushed him back causing him to stagger, "No. No. No. Get out now."

The wet floor caused her to lose her balance and slip, falling headlong back into his arms with a frustrated growl.

"Hey! hey hey woah relax Shepard. I thought you were pretty good."

She glared at him, both of them thoroughly soaked with hair plastered to their skin.

"Out Alenko. Now."

He laughed and backed out of the room, water sloshing onto the floor, hands up in surrender, "Aye Aye ma'am."

As he turned to leave he looked over his shoulder with a mischievous glint in his eyes and completed the verse in a raspy baritone.

He watched her scowl and shut the door with a bang as he walked out of her quarters, chuckling and leaving a trail of water behind him.


	13. Hands

She'd become isolated, difficult to read at times even by those closest to her. He'd tried unsucessfully to reach out to her. Very often literally.

She'd staggered aboard the Normandy for the first time in months during their ragtag escape from Earth, ignoring his open hand offered in support. It was almost a gesture of peace, or acknowledgement of moving forward, but not recieved.

He'd reached over to her in an attempt to pull her up on her feet after her reckless dive in front of a turret to protect two citizens. She'd pushed herself up and smiled appreciatively at him, but limped back to the LZ point alone.

On Rannoch. he'd extended an arm from the shuttle to lift her inside, but she'd brushed past him with a smirk making a teasing remark about being able to board a shuttle herself. Steve laughed at that.

Now as he entered his quarters, he found her slumped over in the corner with a haunted and bottomless gaze. Her expression was only kept on the border of sane by an almost opaque veil of sleep deprivation. The datapad in her hand hung limply over the tops of her knees. Legion's death was taking an obvious toll on her feigned mask of confidence.

She'd been waiting here for him, that much he knew, and looked up with a ghostly attempt to tug the corners of her lips upwards in greeting. He towered over her, feeling helplessly frustratedly unable to offer any support that she would openly accept.

Slowly, he offered an open hand forward. She considered for a minute, visibly strained in letting down her guard.

He sighed, about to sit beside her instead, understanding her stubbornness in only relying on herself. He wasn't going to lie, it stung a bit.

But then he felt a slight pressure in his grasp and a childlike, desperate squeeze. As if she was trying to confirm he wouldn't let her fall.

He pulled her up and caught her staggering into his arms, sweeping her off her feet while she croaked a hoarse shriek. He held her to his chest and sat down looking out into the stars, feeling her snuggle closer and the let out a small breath of resignation and contentment.

"Don't do this alone anymore."

But she had fallen fast asleep, vulnerable, in his arms.


	14. English Bay

"So this is that amazing view you told me about."

She raised an eyebrow with a skeptical smirk. But sadness nagged irritatingly beneath the statement as her eyes crossed over the charred remains of trees and cinders that ringed a sweeping lake like a smouldering halo. The water looked as if someone had stomped the flow out of it, black and still. This was what was left of his home.

She'd expected a coy remark in return, a goofy laugh, or an exasperated exhale when her smartassing was frustrating him, but as she turned around she found herself staring at more burned and blackened landscape.

Realization coursed through her veins in a shock of ice water; she pulled her n7 hoodie more securely around her body but still shivered nonetheless.

She walked over to what would have been the deck, stepping over splintered wood and debris. She imagined that he would have stood right there, in that exact same spot, brows crinkled in a signature pucker with a beer dangling lazily in his hand. Maybe he would hum a tune softly just as he always did when she couldn't sleep. Her favorite was "American Pie" because the way the resonance carried tickled the tip of her ear. It made her smile to imagine him smirking.

She picked up a rock and hurled it into the lake, the black water swallowing up the stone without so much as causing a stir to the desolate scene.

"I will find you Kaidan." she whispered to the sky, eyes squeezed shut in determination.

She let the silence settle as she pictured the perfect image in her mind again. This time she was standing pressed to his side.

She spoke in a barely audible prayer, mostly to herself, "I have no right to ask, but help your old skipper out one more time."

She didn't notice the hot trail of moisture slip past her closed lid.

"Bring him home Ash."


	15. Illusion

She reached up and ran her fingertips over the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. She liked to think that it meant they were growing older together.

He smiled and pressed his lips to the soft underside of her wrist. His stubble tickled and made her laugh.

"I love you Shepard."

She hummed in agreement and parted her lips to return the sentiment.

Then her eyes snapped open, disoriented, to a dark room and a glowing television screen. The blankets were damp with sweat and a scantily clad reporter spoke nasally into the camera

_"…Reported missing in action… Among the losses, Second human Spectre Major Alenko… Search efforts…"_

She looked to find that it was a one person bed. A hospital bed.

She answered the beeping of monitors that whirred systematically in the background, "I love you too."

She was alone.


	16. Ash

He would have ignored the hiccup, missed something so easily unnoticed, busied with rounding up the crew for a celebratory dinner in the mess. They were on their way to victory, all mutineers and criminals riding into the jaws of hell together. The din of passerby chatter was all accented with a steady hiss, "Ilos."

But he'd heard it, recognized the distraught voice from behind the weapons bench. Everyone tended to avoid it now, no one wanted to be near a place so laden with death and emptiness. At least he thought everyone did.

Shepard was sitting with her head in her hands, soundlessly shaking, silently bearing the burdens that they all shied away from. Intimidating even in a vulnerable state as this. Impressive… beautiful. She started when he crouched beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him with watery eyes, "We couldn't even bring her dog tags back to Sarah."

She looked away in frustration, anger still marred by the trails of silver sliding down her cheeks.

He hesitated, rigid with formality fighting his urge to comfort her, but in the end his emotions… his heart won out.

He pulled her close and brushed away the tears.

She let out a muffled sigh into his chest, the exact emotion behind it he had difficulty pinpointing. Relief? Irritation? Exasperation?

"I shouldn't be here."

She jerked away suddenly a hard glint in her eyes. Pushing her index finger into his chest with surprising force she said, "Don't you dare question my choice Alenko. Don't you dare even for a second think that I would have chosen differently. You… you should be grateful."

He looked at her with blank shock, warring between being offended and being silently elated at her proclamation. Instead, he stood up and made towards the elevator.

"It won't be a celebration without you Commander." He said softly.

As he walked away he almost didn't catch her say,

"I'm sorry Ash. I need him around goddamnit."


	17. Cooking

"Can you believe that we used to have a guy that did this for us?" she said eyeing the burnt mess in the pan suspiciously, "Of course he was also the janitor…"

Kaidan twirled the fire extinguisher's nozzle around, exasperated, "You manage to be so nonchalant about the fact that you just started a fire, on a frigate, with highly combustible fuel that could blast us past the edges of the galaxy."

She glared at him, "You're being dramatic. There was no need for you to come barreling out of Starboard Observation sounding the fire alarm over a little kitchen mishap."

It was his turn to glare back.

She folded her arms and leaned casually against the charred counter,"I'm just a little out of practice with this cooking thing is all."

"Uh yeah… no. I'm guessing that you would have burned the ship down even before Cerberus and their maids if Ash hadn't been so set on doing all the cooking."

"Is that so? Well then Mr. Alenko you can have the honor of eating my lovely little creation," a wicked glint flickering in her eyes, "Don't want it to go to waste now do we? Precious supplies going down the trash chute."

She held the pan up in his face as he made a disgusted expression and tried to shield himself with his hands.

He caught her wrists and knocked the food back onto the counter catching her lips in a warm kiss. She locked her arms around his neck and he tugged her hips into him as they momentarily forgot about their little spat. She jumped away suddenly, startled at a clattering behind them.

James had a piece of whatever she was trying to prepare sticking out of his mouth looking as if he was in the process of passing by, "Uh.. don't mind me Commander, continue what you were doing." He made a little shooing motion with his hands.

They just stared as he walked away whistling.

"EDI?" Kaidan said suppressing laughter, "Send a message to the crew's datapads telling them to stay away from the bathrooms for a little while?"

Shepard punched him.


End file.
